


The Reichenbach Fallout.

by palegingerade



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, I Believe in Sherlock Holmes, M/M, No Mary, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Reichenbach, Reichenbach Feels, Sad John, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good, Yes It Is!, but he means well, but is it?, johnlock kiss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-26 22:51:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5023624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palegingerade/pseuds/palegingerade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'No, we're not always together! I AM NOT GAY!'</p><p> John stays awake until it's daylight, thinking the one thought that still haunts him the most, </p><p>What would he say now if he had just one more day?</p><p>One minute to go back and admit the truth.<br/>One chance to fix all of this.<br/>One more miracle...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first Sherlock fic. Hope you like it. (No beta, just my own ramblings.)
> 
> John is sad now but he'll cheer up very soon...quite a lot!

~  If you eliminate the impossible,  
   whatever remains,  
   however improbable,  
   must be the truth. ~

It had been a week since it happened.

A week that had sped as quickly as a second on the clock on the mantle. A week that had spun John Watson's world into glorious free-fall. And he didn't know how to even begin to explain..

Every week for six months he'd been back here, receiving the therapy he hadn't felt he'd needed before. That wasn't the case this time. This time he'd been more desperate than ever to talk, but struggling, really struggling to put his thoughts into words.

Dealing with the gut-wrenching loss of his best friend, the death of the one person who was the most alive and important - most exciting human being that John had ever met, had been the most difficult thing he'd ever had to face. And facing all of that spiralling grief head on and alone, without that someone he had come to so fiercely rely on, was worse than witnessing everything that had died along with him that day.

Sherlock. 

John thumbed at the green leather on the armrest, worrying a thread loose until it frayed in the clenched palm of his hand. His stomach churned, empty and growling; a warning. This was indeed true and too real. 

He really was sitting here for the last time, about to sign off and finally say it out loud. Say the words he'd dreamed of saying each and every day to another person. Six months had been leading to this.

"Where do you want to start today, John?"

He glanced up at the familiar face, sympathetic smile and kind eyes of his therapist, feeling his heartbeat rise steadily and catch in his throat, his voice forcing it's way out between them, still in sheer and utter total disbelief.

"My best friend.. Sherlock Holmes..is alive."

***

John has tried to avoid thinking about Sherlock at all costs, with various degrees of failure. 

His nightmares are no longer of Afghanistan. Some nights they're much worse. 

Falling - he's falling and he's screaming and he's terrified, everything always at once. It's only when his body hits the ground; that all familiar sickening thump, does his brain and his heart jolt him awake with a start.

_Dammit. God dammit, Sherlock!_

He sits alone at the table for breakfast, forcing down bits of dry toast that grate sore in his throat and stirring two sugars in black coffee without thinking that it isn't him who takes it.

He sometimes goes to work at his new practice. Sometimes. The days are long, mundane, and he hates every minute. But it's steady, dependable and it always pays the rent. Quite unlike a certain consulting detective that wouldn't seem to leave him the hell alone lately!

"Dammit, Sherlock! Haven't you done enough?!"

John still talks to him as if he's there. Sometimes in his head. Not usually out loud but when it all gets too much and he needs to scream and shout then he does, and he doesn't hold back. 

"How can you do this to me? After every damn thing we've been through!"

At home in Baker Street there is little that doesn't remind him. Constantly. And John can't decide whether he likes it that way or not. The waving cat on the mantlepiece, the skull and the open box of nicotine patches remain. As does the book laid face down on the coffee table, spine bent at the page Sherlock had been reading that day. The tale left untold, new chapters still to discover, the story frozen and time cut short way before it was supposed to end. A constant reminder of their own great adventure. The physical and ever present elephant in the room. 

John sometimes smiles when he's reminded of the way Sherlock read books: facts from this one and that, flicking manically from one volume and passage as he turned the pages in double time, like he got bored of it in seconds yet had devoured every word. That fantastic brain always a hard drive of information he could never quite fill.

There was an open book in the kitchen by the kettle, John noted, and one on the bathroom floor by the sink. He hadn't bothered to remove either of them. He couldn't bare to look as he made dinner and stood dead-eyed in the mirror, absentmindedly brushing his teeth. He couldn't wrap his head around the English language anymore. Words didn't make sense. 

Nothing mattered now.

John doesn't want to read. He doesn't want to think about anything ever again. He just wants to feel - and he does. He feels everything at once. Consumed in the loneliness, the nothingness, the overwhelming emptiness and so much heaving sadness it's as if he doesn't belong in the world. All the chaos of it is meaningless to him and after all this time; the therapy, the months of Mycroft's and Molly's remarkable strength and kindness, he was still drowning in the desperate despair of his grief.

John walks a lot, needing sometimes to take leave of the memories that survive all around him. No matter how he longs to keep them locked away safe, sometimes it is simply too much.

The media circus after Sherlock's death is huge - a massive obstacle to overcome in itself. It had been on every news channel, was every sordid tabloid headline, front page of every damn publication there was. Everybody needed the inside scoop, an explanation that no one but John deserved, and it followed him everywhere he went.

'SHOCK SUICIDE OF GENIUS DETECTIVE!"

'MORIARTY WAS REAL!'

The fans that had protested with all their banners and bunting showed no signs of dying off yet. The campaign rightly titled; 'I believe in Sherlock Holmes.' had come a little to late for John to stomach. There had been posters slapped on front doors for miles on end, displayed proudly in every shop window, bumper stickers plastered on every car in the street, t-shirts with that face, deerstalkers, flyers left in the road and badges on the lapels of every damn journalist on his doorstep. A virus, infecting and multiplying slowly, barely noticeable until it begins to itch under John's skin and then it's too late, too uncomfortable not to acknowledge and consuming every cell in his body until he no longer wants to be in it. A lethal and devestating blow.

Whenever John sits on their sofa the cushion dips down in a worn groove under his weight, and in the middle of the night; his darkest hour, when whatever bottle of scotch or cheap vodka he drinks from is empty, he dares himself to reach the dip next to him on his right. His fingers press and run over the old tread and matching cushion as the tears blur his tired eyes and ring hot in his ears. And it's there in that moment the void and pain is immeasurable.

"Christ, Sherlock!"

When the deafening silence got that bad and the echos of Sherlock's voice burst from his head and bounced off every wall, John would lunge from the sofa and out into the street, walking aimlessly until every hint of the baritone had hushed and the alcohol in his bloodstream wore off.

Screaming hangovers John could cope with. They were a welcome distraction. And sometimes he prefers it that way.

This particular night it's raining heavily and he hadn't bothered to grab himself a coat. The cold rain runs through his hair and all down his face, blurring his vision and the pavement underfoot into miles upon miles of grey sludge.

John Watson's world is grey sludge.

He walks for a while, about an hour or so, before it stops raining and he'd reached the gated gardens on Edgeware Road. He doesn't look up, he knows the signpost too well. He'd ended up here so many times before. Victoria Park tube station is opposite but it's no longer in use. The shell remains intact but all the bustle of life long gone. Soulless, John thinks, soulless and empty and derelict. Abandoned too. Not that he'd had much need of a tube station since..

"Sherlock..."

It's barely a whisper this time. His lips are too cold to form sounds but he can see the white gust of breath it makes, how the name sounds and shudders out in the air. Watching it makes John want to run away, never look back, but he doesn't. His leg always hurts when it's this cold and his old injury is bad enough at the moment without the use of his cane. The bitter wind bites at his arms in short sleeves and his hands huddle across his chest, shivering as he starts on his heels back home.

When he returns back to Baker Street John's thoughts become clearer. The fog lifting as he thinks again of his time in the army. 

When a man - a soldier - is killed in battle his death is, for lack of a better word; straightforward. There isn't much you can do to mend the injury of fatality, not enough time to make a difference. It's over and dealt with right there and then. If you let down your guard and grieve for the loss you would get left behind too, become an easier target, fatally wounded, and then the cycle would continue again. Without you.

He slumps on the sofa exhausted, stretching his aching leg out on the table in front. It's almost light outside now and soon he'd make the usual call to work, as soon as he'd dried off and found something else to drink. He scans the floor and the wall of bottles by his feet, noticing a flash of paper sticking out, mashed up within leaves on the thick tread of his boot.

And that's when he sees it.

It's red and it's white and it's blue and there's that face and those words that make the contents of his stomach lurch hard into his throat.

'I believe in Sherlock Holmes.'

He'd probably taken it with him, he thinks, walked around with Sherlock all over, together, on the old streets of London. Just like they did before..

He pulls off the flyer and sets it down on the table, reminded of previous conversations he'd had with Lestrade, with Mrs. Hudson, and Irene, with anyone who would listen - where he'd always protest just a little too much,

'No, were not always together! I AM NOT GAY!'

John stays awake until it's daylight, thinking the one thought that still haunts him the most.

What would he say now if he had one more day? 

One minute to go back and admit the truth.  
One chance to fix all of this.  
One more miracle..

"Dammit, Sherlock, I love you!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John dreams of Sherlock, of what could have been, if only..

"Keep your eyes fixed on me. John, can you do this for me?"

''It's alright.'' John nods, gasps, doesn't realise he's replied out loud, but does as Sherlock asks - as always, each of his senses already in battle, preparing for the horror of what he knows is about to come; the brute kick of adrenaline in the pit of his stomach as the rest of the street becomes clear.

His heart races. Thumps. The pounding blood ringing hot in his ears at the first flash of bright sunlight. 

And there's so much pain.

His fists clench at his sides, the nails of his right hand burrowing slowly under the skin. So much searing pain that his leg is about to give from under him, until suddenly he's there again; St. Bart's Hospital, mobile phone in hand, feet frozen to the spot, rigid on the pavement as he squints up towards the sky. 

Faced again with the choice that he dreads, John scrunches his eyes so tight he could scream. 

Stay or flee?  
Watch or run?  
Stand ground, or surrender?  
Fight or flight? 

Fight. Always fight.

The scene is too familiar - yet somehow it's different. 

There's no blood-curdling scream ripping hoarse from his throat. No sense of that desperate imploding doom in slow motion. No twist and lurch in his gut as the world around him caves in and fades. And he's no longer afraid.

Sherlock isn't staring down from the rooftop - isn't falling, not broken or lifeless before him - his gleaming black curls not spoiled in his blood as it runs through John's hands on the concrete.

Not dead?

"It's a dream, John, just a trick of the mind. Keep your eyes closed. Breathe. Trust me."

The voice echos deep in his head, washes through to his very core in waves that invoke so much heat and calm all at once - a voice that speaks on a level like no other, gets through to him when nothing else can, and John can't bear the agony of knowing it's not real.

It can't be, it's impossible.

"That's it.."

It vibrates in his skull, each slight change in pitch causing goosebumps to prickle on contact and the familiar judder turn every vertibrae in his spine into mush.

"It's okay now."

The voice is suddenly much softer, each word a comfort blanket, soothing the roaring pressure in his temples; a breathtaking low whisper.

Unmistakable.

"Sherlock?"

"I'm here. Oh god, look at you, you're freezing. Come on.."

He's lifted from the sofa and out of the street, floating, suspended in air, pulled with strong arms into something both cold and warm, the thick scent of cigarette smoke engulfing his nostrils as the something is wrapped over his shoulders.

Warmth closes in all around him.

He's safe here. 

Each sensation blindingly familiar. Relief. Like coming in from the cold of a bitter bleak winter, back in one piece when the war is over, reunited in the open embrace of a lover, and warm by the fire at home in his chair.

It's all crystal clear now.

It's Sherlock's coat closing around him, his hand in the back of his hair, his fingers and his dry lips smudging the tears on his cheeks, and although John's aware this is indeed another extremely lucid dream it doesn't matter, now everything is perfect.

"Come with me."

He collapses into Sherlock, absorbing the warmth, the relief and the ecstacy, winding his fingers in the deep mass of curls but not daring his eyes to flick open for a second. It feels far to good to let go. The scene plays out just how he'd imagined regardless,

"Oh god, thank god! But I saw you, you were.."

"Shhh, not now, John. Bed."

There's no pain, no more hurt, nothing else in that moment John's head sinks back in the pillow and the press of a soft palm smooths his forehead. 

"36. And rising. Still, ever so slightly below normal."

"W-what?"

"No, nothing. Relax."

"S-Sherlock, I know you're not really...but I need to tell you... I need.." John grabs desperately out in front of him, grips the scarf that he knows is there and yanks hard so Sherlock is finally ontop of him, and then kisses him so hard that it hurts. "There's so much I need to say, please, so much I never got chance.."

"I know. You can say it now."

John pulls Sherlock face down on his chest, knows he's never wanted anything as much as it continues to pour from his lips; his confession - and from every last ounce of his being, so fluid and fast he's surprised it makes sense, but it does, and, finally, it doesn't hold back. "I love you, I've always loved you, so much! God, Sherlock, please, don't be.." the words are rough - wrought with emotion, each huffed and breathed and cut short with the sound of wet kisses as John's head is shoved back in the mattress and his hands hold on for dear life. Such an aching desperation he hasn't felt in months - if ever, and he can't believe these words are his own, "you idiot, you're such a fucking idiot, Sherlock! It's always been you. Always. To think I could ever even begin to deny this, oh fuck. Fuck! Why did you have to..." Sherlock's kiss interrupts and it's harder this time, hard yet soft all at once and all over him everywhere, somewhere between an agreement and a promise as the last of the cold evaporates and sweat pricks on his hairline. 

John's hands dig in Sherlock's, fingers mould between knuckles, the air between mouths so heady and hot; so much desire he can hardly breathe. He doesn't care. He doesn't need oxygen. He doesn't need anything. Nothing else matters but this. "I want you, I want more of you. Fuck! I'm so stupid, I wish I'd been brave enough.."

"Shh, it's too late now."

"I know that!"

"I mean, not now. Not like this. You need your rest."

"I need you!"

"I know."

Their lips meet and tongues press together more urgently and all at once everything is brilliant and white. The taste of Sherlock rushes wildly in John, and moans of want and pure need huff in that damn perfect mouth.

He wishes he could do this forever; kiss Sherlock. Just the two of them breathing in and out, the same air, a mass of tangled and worn out limbs, skin on hot skin. 

Connected.

Together.

As the world should have been. 

If only...

John knows the dream has to end soon. Kissing Sherlock never happens like this. 

It's only ever in bed, when he's alone at night, intoxicated just enough for his conscious to allow does he dream of these lips all over him, ripping this silk shirt clean off in one tug, pinning these hands weak in submission to the pillowcase, but then he realises that's all it can be. 

He'll have to carry on alone again tomorrow, but for the first time since that day he doesn't want to wake up, and before this night clouds over and the memory drifts away he groans out the last words he remembers, the ones that would truly haunt him forever.

Until the very end of time.

"Christ, Sherlock, I wish I'd been brave!"


End file.
